


The Sun on my Skin

by itsdeianeira



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergence - Post Season 5A, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, Future Fic, Headcanon, M/M, Post-Canon Fix-It, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-17 04:58:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4653237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsdeianeira/pseuds/itsdeianeira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles came out of this battle scarred, both physically and emotionally. Derek feels guilty for not having been there to prevent it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sun on my Skin

**Author's Note:**

> Because I think Stiles' scar is beautiful.

Gutted. That's what Derek was. Had been for a couple of days, since his long-suffered homecoming. He was angry with himself, with the coward part of himself that had told him staying away from Scott's pack – _his pack_ , he mentally noted – for such an improbable length of time would have been right, would have been positive for everyone. He was furious with his reasoning self for giving credit to his quitter self, because deep inside he had always known the whole you-will-be-better-off-without-me thing was a complete, utter bullshit. Because, if it was right, why had it never felt so?

Derek sipped his coffee, his eyes staring into the skyline in the distance, burning bright in different nuances of orange and pink and red, through the immense industrial window of his loft. He hadn't slept at all that night, persistently scrutinizing the pale ceiling while losing himself in the unstoppable stream of consciousness, his mind being dragged in a downward spiral of negative feelings. Grief mixed with regret mixed with self-reproach mixed with sorrow.

He shouldn't have left in first place.

He should have known better.

He should have stayed for the pack's sake.

But Derek's timing was well-known to be all wrong, like all his choices in life. All wrong, totally inappropriate. And so he had chosen to be selfish, to go find himself and deal with his wolf-being right when the perfect storm had been on the verge of raging on Beacon Hills. The only thing that was currently preventing him from crumbling and shuttering to the ground, mourning the most important people left in his otherwise miserable existence, was the fact the he had saved them by the skin of his teeth. He had come back running pulled by an uncomfortable anxiety telling him they were in danger. Eventually, he had come back right on time before they could drown in their own mistakes. The pack was finally safe, that was all that counted, the only thing that was keeping him from chastise himself.

He should have felt proud, and yet he couldn't.

He had spent the whole night focusing on the even breathing beside him, the person that was the key of this insufferable state of mind, the one reason why he could not forgive himself and the one why he had decided to relent the strings of his own guilt. His anchor. When the perfect steady rhythm of inhaling and exhaling started to gradually slow down, its owner finally waking up from a deep slumber and rustling through the sheets, Derek decided to stay put and soak in the faint light of the waking day to let it warm the skin of his undressed torso. He heard the soft sound of padding down the stairs, but he didn't move until a warm arm sneaked slowly around his waist, while soft lips delicately brushed his shoulder blades. His one hand free from the mug didn't hesitate to slide along the skin of the strong forearm that was wrapping him.

“Did you get any sleep at all?”

Derek muttered something under his breath in lieu of a negative response.

“Why?” the words were gently whispered, exhaled upon his shoulder, hot breath caressing his skin.

Derek left his head fall behind at the sensation, brow furrowed and lips puckered, tentatively fighting back the temptation to speak. He could not afford to burden the people he loved with the unsustainable weight of his inner turmoil again. So he chose to stay silent and shook his head.

“Will you talk to me? Or should I pay a penny for your thoughts?”

He sighed. “Trust me, you don't want to know.”

The sound of Stiles' laughter, whether if it was just a chuckle like this, always managed to fill the empty corners of his cavernous home. It was overwhelming to feel it rustling in the young man's chest that was flushed to his back, reverberating from his sternum to his own spine, echoing in his ribcage. It was overwhelming to feel the gratitude surging at the thought he might had never heard that sound ever again if hadn't come back in time.

“And here I thought you had changed. Still the same broody grumpy guy, huh?” he said, hooking his chin on Derek's shoulder.

Derek smiled shortly but remained silent, zoning out again, his mind lost in the view projecting before him, the city waking up to a new day. He didn't even realized Stiles had grabbed his cup from his hand and was heading to the kitchen until Stiles' heat suddenly disappeared, leaving his bare back exposed to the cold air of the early morning once again.

It was starting to happen every time Stiles walked away, each time they departed. This sensation of nakedness and incompleteness that left his core cold and defenseless. And it terrorized Derek. Because, however long the list of dear ones he had lost might have been, Derek could not stop caring for the people around him. He had tried, he had tried really hard when he had thought living without connections would have saved him from one more broken heart, but it hadn't worked. It was in his blood, the tendency to save and protect, the aptitude to love. And what was worse was that this bond, the tether between him and Stiles, was stronger than whichever other relationship Derek had ever formed. As strong as a kin connection, but deeper, if the numbness vanquishing him every time Stiles walked away was something to go by. He had been able to adjust to solitude and to someone's absence in the past, but he could not see a life after him. Their souls were gripped to each other for dear life, with no intention of letting go. He was petrified by the fear that this time he would have not survived an hypothetical abandon.

He held his breath, waiting, and released only when he heard the mug being eased on the table with a dull thud. Then Stiles chest was back, skin on skin, and Stiles' grip tightened, both arms surrounding his waist with a steadiness that gave away all his determination to keep him close.

“Talk to me, Derek,” and he could have swore that simple sentence had come out as a plead. “I know it's hard, nothing is easy in this town, literally nothing...” Stiles trailed off, words muffled by Derek skin. His forehead leaning against the back of Derek's neck, lips ghosting upon his tattoo, just an inch away, too distant for a kiss, but close enough for Derek to feel the phantom of his breath. “But maybe sharing what's going through our minds will make it easier. I already made this kind of mistake with too many people and look where this has led us.”

Derek turned around in Stiles' embrace, finally facing him and taking him in. With the warm light coming from Derek's back Stiles eyes appeared even lighter. Even though sleep was still weighting on his lids, his pupils were so thin they were almost invisible, rounded by kaleidoscopic irises shining with a thousand shades of browns and yellows. His hair were dishevelled, flat on the right, strands sticking out everywhere on the left, and he looked perfect in all his imperfection. It was second nature for Derek to lean in and kiss him languidly, with just the right intensity. Stiles hummed into the kiss, pulling Derek away only slightly to free his lips just enough to murmur, “mmm, morning breath,” before Derek could attack his mouth once more.

Stiles lips were soft, a bit chapped at first, before his tongue could slide over them and he started deepening the kiss, taking his time to savor them, just like the previous night, like their first kiss. When he was content with Stiles' mouth, he nipped at his lower lip then slowly moved down to kiss his chin, his unshaven jaw, lapping behind his ear.

“Way to avoid the subject.” Stiles said panting, as Derek's tongue drew his earlobe gently between his teeth.

“You love it.” He muttered low-voiced into his ear, hot breath causing a warm shiver to travel down Stiles' spine and making his head reclining in surrender. Somewhere in between, Stiles' hands had left Derek's shoulders to firmly grip the table behind him.

“Never said the contrary,” Stiles quickly retorted before exhaling a clear moan. Derek's tongue wasn't stopping, tracing the line of his tendon down his neck until it found his collarbone. He came to kiss his shoulder, and then, abruptly, he stopped. Stiles stilled and craned is neck slightly to the side in order to get a glimpse of what Derek was doing, of what had brought him to a halt. When the teenager realized the point where the man's eyes were fixed upon, Derek heard him choke, his throat constricting as he struggled to swallow.

He pulled his lips away from Stiles' pale skin, while his hand that had been resting on Stiles' hip slid up his side, hot palm sensing each curve and edge of Stiles' torso, pads purposefully brushing through his nipple, until it reached the base of his neck, thumb barely touching around the irregular impression of the scar.

“Does it hurt?”

Stiles shook his head, looking down as he didn't want to show his lover his own sadness, or maybe he didn't want to witness the forthcoming sadness in his lover's expression. Knowing Stiles, it was probably both.

“Not anymore. Just the memory.”

Derek was suddenly overwhelmed by the smell of fear oozing from Stiles and pervading his lungs. Horror, terror, pure dread that made the boy's heart hammering against his ribs and his whole being shaking to the core. And then the air filled with the unmistakable scent of emotional hurt and Derek could almost hear Stiles' heart breaking all over again at the memory of Scott's disappointed face and distrust. Derek guiltiness surged again. He should have been there to protect him, to protect them.

He pulled him in, flushed to his own chest, lulling him, sheltering him, placating his shudders.

“Hey,” he took Stiles' chin between the tip of his index and the pad of his thumb, lifting it up to meet his eyes. “Everything's fine now. You're okay, the pack is okay.”

“Yeah, we're alive. But at what price? We're broken, distant, trying to individually mend our souls. Are we really still a pack, after all?”

“Give them time, the thread will strengthen again sooner or later. You all will fix your collective bond, slowly, one stitch at a time.”

“This time was bad. They were stronger than whichever other supernatural villain we'd ever fought before, and they had Theo. Conquering our trust with his masquerade, he broke us from the inside, he cut all the connections between us, one by one, until we were alone, every man for himself, too busy fighting the monsters in our own heads to care for the real issue. It was nothing like the battles against the Kanima or the Alpha Pack and the Darach. It was completely different from the previous 'Okay, let's go find Derek,' or the Benefactor's issue, when the more we were, the better. You know what all these situations had in common? The _together_. We had always been one for all and all for one, never alone, always walking on thin ice but with the certainty we had a bunch of friends having our backs. Last time...” he paused, closing his eyes trying to regain some oxygen and slow down his heart rate. “Last time left us broken. Inside out.”

Derek felt so powerless. He loathed feeling useless like this. He needed to find the strength for the both of them, to pick up the pieces of this beautiful soul in front of him and put it back together. So he opted for, “I'm here now.” He cupped Stiles' cheek with his palm, his forehead fell forward to collide with Stiles'. “Not gonna let anything bad happen again, okay?”

Stiles exhaled soundly. “Yeah, I know. And this,” he said as his gestured between the two of them, “This I'm thankful for. Because suddenly, when I was convinced I was alone and void, you came back and saved me. _Again_.” Derek huffed out a short laugh at the emphasis the boy at put on the last word. “I don't know if I still have faith in us pack. I don't know if I believe in us friends anymore. But at least now I have _us_.”

At that, Derek felt his core crumble.

“God, how did I went denying you for so long?”

“We, Derek. How did _we_ went denying all of this to ourselves? And, for the record, the answer is completely obscure to me.” Derek eventually cackled, because leave it to Stiles to pronounce a serious, almost romantic sentence in a completely non-romantic tone.

He felt Stiles relaxing against himself, tension subsiding from his shoulder, a sheepish smile raising on his face making his eyes brighter for a minute. Derek could not avoid losing himself into those amber oceans reflecting the soul of the love of his life. They were staring back into Derek's from just an inch apart, like Stiles was trying to delve into his head, to decode this grown man embracing him tight.

When the realization hit him, a sparkle flickered in them.

“You feel guilty, don't you?”

Derek's eyes widened for a moment before he quickly put himself together again. “For what?”

Stiles narrowed his in a suspicious glance. “I don't know. You tell me.” 

Before Derek could stop himself his eyes flicked to the scar on Stiles shoulder. Just one short glance that however didn't go unnoticed to Stiles acumen. Once the younger man tracked down Derek's gaze's direction, he stared up at him astounded, searching for eye contact.

“This? This is what kept you awake tonight?” he asked, pointing at his shoulder.

Derek turned his head aside. He should have known Stiles was too smart not to grasp the truth.

The night before had been the best night of his life, making love to Stiles and embracing him through his sleep. He had felt whole, at last. But seeing that scar...

“Derek.”

And Derek was letting his eyelids fall shut, waiting for the wave of pain to overpower him. Stiles stubbornness however would have never allowed him to get away so easily. “Derek please look at me. Is this the reason of the guilt that's consuming you from the inside?”

He shook his head vehemently. “The scar is just a physical reminder of how I should have done things differently.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” his pitch raising.

“I keep thinking that if I had been there...”

“You could not know.”

“Maybe. But if I had been in Beacon Hills when all this started I could have looked after you, I could have helped you unmask Theo, I-”

“Maybe. You wouldn't know. You came back, you pulled us out of this trans, you woken us, you saved us. That's all that matters.”

“Why did I left? If I think about it now, it doesn't make any sense. It was selfish of me.”

“Yeah, exactly. Because that's how you are, a constant swing between selfishness and selflessness. Derek Hale, the extremely egocentric boy who created a new pack not to be alone anymore – how dare you. Derek Hale, the brave Alpha who would kill to keep his own pack safe but at the same time is convinced the pack can do well on its own. Stop making a martyr of yourself, Der!” Derek looked up to Stiles' face to find a small smile, mild and serene. Stiles tangles his fingers through Derek's dark strands to make him relax. “Besides, you're not the only one living with buts and ifs. I killed people. Something I'd never thought I could do. We can work this out together, right? It will go away eventually, we just have to focus on the silver lining.”

“What silver lining, Stiles? You were in danger and fighting against some of the most terrifying monsters Beacon Hills has ever seen while I roadtripped on a mission leading to nothing. If I had been here, Theo would have never fooled me, I could have helped, Stiles!” Stiles brows were drawn together in apprehension, as he worried his lower lip chewing it mildly. “I kept wasting time because I didn't want to come back to find a pack who didn't need me anymore, while my pack was screaming for an help, an help that I could have gave them.”

“And you did!” Stiles cut him out. “Derek- fuck! Derek look me in the eye.” He took the man's head between his hands and lift it up. “You. Saved. Us. You get it? There's no point in sulking thinking about how things could have gone if we had acted otherwise. You think I haven't had my fair share of self-loathing for not telling Scott sooner about Donovan, for trusting Theo even though I knew from the beginning he was bad news? But I am human. And even with your wolf powers, that's what you are, too. Your heart is human, your feelings are human.” Derek was staring in shock. “And what's worse is... You know why I trusted him in the end?” Derek's expression showed pure concern, but the question was rhetorical and Stiles was determined to be honest. “I saw a bit of you in him.” That made Derek wince, and Stiles smiled looking down. “Remember how we were at the beginning?”

“Constantly barking at each other?”

“Yours was more of a growling, but yes. I didn't trust you, I was afraid of you because of your...” Stiles widely indicated Derek's whole body and face, which made Derek bark out a laugh. “You were scaring, dude, okay? But then I saved you. And then you saved me. And we started... bonding. I don't even know. The thing is, whether you kept putting me back to the corner and we kept assailing one another, we knew we could trust each other.”

“What has this to do with Theo?” Derek glowered with jealousy.

“I didn't trust him at the beginning. But then he saved me, or so I thought, he seemed to be keeping my secret just fine. He saved Lydia... I- I thought I could- Shit. I missed you, okay? I knew if you were there you would have understood about Donovan, and the secret was eating me alive... I just projected your persona onto him.”

Derek didn't know if he should have felt proud for having been on Stiles' mind, or more guilty for Stiles having missed him.

But Stiles resumed speaking. “Do you think I don't feel guilty for all this mess? This- this monstrous, abominable brand on my body doesn't do anything but remind me of it. What you called a 'physical reminder' is even more physical for me, for it's on my skin. Like, physically. Only getting a glimpse at it makes me sick, and thinking that I have to cope with it for the rest of my days... it unsettles me in a way I can't even explain.”

Derek took Stiles in, his eyes closed and his face lit up entirely by the rays of sunshine slowly getting warmer as the minutes passed. He let his hands slide up the young man's arms to settle them symmetrically on his cheeks and brush his thumbs under Stiles' eyes. When Stiles reopened them, in their depths Derek could find only hurt, pain, all the feelings he wanted to shield him from. Stiles deserved so much better.

Derek went back to size the scar up, caressing around the dent, afraid of reaching the center where the wound had been deeper.

“It's so beautiful,” he breathed out. Stiles snorted, luring Derek's glance on himself. He saw the boy had his brow furrowed as a small, sardonic smile made his lips tense. Obviously, he didn't believe him. “I'm serious, Stiles.” Derek leaned forward to kiss his eyelids, on the tip of his nose and then up on the bridge until his lips finally touched down between his eyebrows, right where a crease was deforming his features, darkening his whole face. “I do think it's beautiful.” He drift apart again to look right into his eyes. “It reminds me of a stylized sun, you know. Like in a Maori tattoo.”

Stiles widened his eyes startled, and Derek smiled amused.

“See...” He said, while he hovered his index over the scar, tracing the air an inch from Stiles' skin. “The center is the main body.” He trailed as he waited to complete the circle. “While the small splinters all around are the rays.” His palm was now open, floating over the mark to cover its entirety, giving off heat. “And you know, the funny thing is that many Maori tattoos combine the sun with two other symbols, mainly. The first is quite obvious: the moon.” Derek's eyes, which hadn't left the mark until now, looked up at Stiles' face, suggesting the implication in what Derek had just said. “The second is pretty rarer to find around. But I think you might know it well.”

Stiles narrowed his eyes, unsure. “Are you serious, now?”

“Yes. I swear,” he chuckled. “The triskele is often drawn inside the ring. Sometimes it's depicted exactly like mine, other times the three spirals are rendered in the form of three flames curling up on themselves.” As he explained the tip of his index was dancing on Stiles skin, outlining the image stamped on his mind. Stiles was admiring the movement in awe.

“You think it's coincidence?”

“Don't know. I'm not exactly a fan of casualty. What I know is that, for some inexplicable reason, your mark remind you everyday of what you can lose, just like mine does with me. It gives away what you are, it keeps you tied to what you consider important in your life.”

“You mean it keeps me tied to you?”

Derek snorted soundly. “I meant friendship. And love, yeah. That too.”

“So you think it's a sign, then.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe.” Looking into Derek's eyes, Stiles must had seen the sincerity, since the smile on his face changed, widening and lighting him up.

There it was, the sun of Derek's life, shining bright on his lover's face.

**Author's Note:**

> There are many many different versions of the Maori tattoos Derek's talking about, these are just the ones I choose to use:  
> \- [Sun & Moon](http://www.tattootribes.com/multimedia/88/sun-moon-maorigrams-tattoo.jpg)  
> \- [Sun & Triskele (version 1)](http://www.tattootribes.com/multimedia/88/maori-sun-tattoo.jpg)  
> \- [Sun & Triskele (version 2)](http://www.tattootribes.com/multimedia/110/Maori-celtic-sun-tattoo.jpg)
> 
> I know I'm boring. I'm always writing about alternate endings and Derek coming back, but I can't really avoid it. I need my favorite character in BH again and writing ficlets about it is the only thing that placates the nostalgia. Plus, this drabble is very important to me, because it's all about the scar Donovan left on Stiles' shoulder. Stiles hates it but Derek makes him see it in a different perspective. Ah, the power of love!
> 
> Rated TA mostly as a precaution.
> 
> PS: Once more, this is completely unbetad and English is not my native tongue, so I apologize for any mistake you might find (please, notify them in the comments if you can!). 
> 
> PPS: I also have [tumblr](http://whisperingfae.tumblr.com/) aaaand [twitter](https://twitter.com/Deianeira__), so come and say hi if you feel like it :D


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